Friday, 16 January 2009

Here's a cool beat ballad from the other side of the Tamar. Paignton, Devon to be precise.

After entering a Beat competition on the regional ITV 'Westward TV' they were offered a deal with NEMS by one of the competition judges, Brian Epstein. Epstein lined the band up with Decca where they recorded two 45s "What A Memory Can Do/Hallo Anne" and "I'm Not The Loving Kind/Can't You See", both of which failed to set the world alight and the band dissapeared from sight.

Tuesday, 13 January 2009

Keith Fisher of Yellow kindly got in touch to share some recollections of Hart Rock '71:

This was the sixth and final incarnation of Yellow; the original formed in ’69 and featured Vic Malcolm on lead guitar, who went on to form Geordie with Tom Hill who had joined the fourth inc’ of Yellow along with me and Bob Barton in August of 1970.

Bob, Kenny Mountain and myself would re-unite in ‘73 with Beckett. Co-incidentally: Beckett’s bass player was Frankie Gibbon, who played in Brass Alley at the time of the EP.

The first inc’ of Yellow recorded a single on CBS in early 1970: Roll it down the hill/Living a lie, that disappeared without trace (a very rare record: S4869) then the drummer [Tommy Sloan] was replaced by Paul Thompson, who had been playing with John Miles and would go on to join Roxy Music.

The Yellow on the EP featured Kenny, myself and two others: Brian James Ingham on bass, and Micky Balls on lead guitar.

A typically incestuous and nepotistic family tree, eh?

Lucas Tyson morphed into Cirkus. Trilogy became Prelude and had a minor hit by covering After the Goldrush. Brass Alley remained a very popular local band until Frankie left, when they became Long-Vehicle.

Yellow’s manager (until Tom and I joined) was Ian Lish from Sunderland: a local promoter. He had been approached [in 1971] by Hartlepool football club to promote an all day music festival in order to – hopefully – boost the club’s declining funds. Kenny and I teamed up with Ian and helped to promote the festival. I don’t remember who’s idea the record was but Multicord was a popular studio in Sunderland and Ken McKenzie – who owned it – agreed to record the tracks for a very nominal sum.

The EP became a collectors item overnight.

The festival was a bit of a shambles and the headline bands – Arrival and The Roulettes (if my memory serves me well – the drugs were much better in those days) only pulled around a thousand punters. The club got professional help the following year and made a decent fist of things.